“High Excellence,” replied the story-teller, speaking for the first time, “it is truly said that that which would appear as a mountain in the evening may stand revealed as a mud-hut by the light of day.  Hear my unpainted word.  I am of the abject House of Kai and my inoffensive rice is earned as a narrator of imagined tales.  Unrolling my threadbare mat at the middle hour of yesterday, I had raised my distressing voice and announced an intention to relate the Story of Wong Ts’in, that which is known as ’The Legend of the Willow Plate Embellishment,’ when a company of armed warriors, converging upon me—­”

“Restrain the melodious flow of your admitted eloquence,” interrupted the Mandarin, veiling his arising interest.  “Is the story, to which you have made reference, that of the scene widely depicted on plates and earthenware?”

“Undoubtedly.  It is the true and authentic legend as related by the eminent Tso-yi.”

“In that case,” declared Shan Tien dispassionately, “it will be necessary for you to relate it now, in order to uphold your claim.  Proceed.”

“Alas, Excellence,” protested Ming-shu from a bitter throat, “this matter will attenuate down to the stroke of evening rice.  Kowtowing beneath your authoritative hand, that which the prisoner only had the intention to relate does not come within the confines of his evidence.”

“The objection is superficial and cannot be sustained,” replied Shan Tien.  “If an evilly-disposed one raised a sword to strike this person, but was withheld before the blow could fall, none but a leper would contend that because he did not progress beyond the intention thereby he should go free.  Justice must be impartially upheld and greatly do I fear that we must all submit.”

With these opportune words the discriminating personage signified to Kai Lung that he should begin.

      The Story of Wong T’sin and the Willow Plate Embellishment

Wong Ts’in, the rich porcelain maker, was ill at ease within himself.  He had partaken of his customary midday meal, flavoured the repast by unsealing a jar of matured wine, consumed a little fruit, a few sweetmeats and half a dozen cups of unapproachable tea, and then retired to an inner chamber to contemplate philosophically from the reposeful attitude of a reclining couch.

But upon this occasion the merchant did not contemplate restfully.  He paced the floor in deep dejection and when he did use the couch at all it was to roll upon it in a sudden access of internal pain.  The cause of his distress was well known to the unhappy person thus concerned, nor did it lessen the pangs of his emotion that it arose entirely from his own ill-considered action.

When Wong Ts’in had discovered, by the side of a remote and obscure river, the inexhaustible bed of porcelain clay that ensured his prosperity, his first care was to erect adequate sheds and labouring-places; his next to build a house sufficient for himself and those in attendance round about him.